Nanotechnology - Enabler versus Application

Nanotechnology is word that is thrown around a lot in techie circles, but there is a lot of confusion as to just what it means.

My colleagues and I have been working on a number of projects for the Japan National Institute of Advanced Industrial Sciend and Technology (AIST), focused primarily on business process improvement of technology transfer (e.g. patent liscencing) and the management of innovation
for nanotechnology research.

In the course of that work, one of my co-authors developed a simple concept that cuts through most of the confusion around the use of the term nanotechnology.

Nanotechnology is an enabler and not an application. In other words, nanotechnology should be thought of as the techniques (enablers) for measuring and manipulating materials at the nanometer scale. Nanotechnology is not the result (application) of that manipulation, which should be categorized and managed according to its own well established discipline. For example, the methods used to encapsulate medicines in nanometer scale structures for improved delivery is nanotechnology. The resulting compounds and the testing of their efficacy is pharmacology, or more broadly medicine. A manufacturing technology to self-assemble semiconducter and electronic materials at the nanometer scale is nanotechnology. The resulting circuits and systems are electronics.

This has policy implications. In the above drug delivery example, the testing of new nanotechnology drugs should follow the same protocols and regulatory processes as for any other drug testing, regardless of how the drug was made. When it comes to the safety of the drug, there is fundamentally no difference in the the need for appropriate testing of the resulting drug (application) regardless of what techniques or tools were used to create (i.e. enable) it. It is only the materials handling at the nanometer scale that may require special treatment.

This is good news, in that well established standards, protocols, and regulations already exist for just about anything you could conceivable make with nanotechnology.

Even the "grey goo" problem can be treated this way. It isn't so much the nanotechnology that needs special regulation. Rather, it's the "grey goo" (the application) that must be controlled.

Our work is in the process of being published, so I'll have references information soon!